The Long & Short Of It

According to the rather amusing TV show Better of Ted, being female, “ . . .Isn’t just about the genitals.  It’s a lifestyle”.   Now I’ve bemoaned the chores of being a woman on here before, from waxing to plucking and all the other tortures in-between I thought I’d experienced the worst of what the female pampering regime could throw at me.  That was until I entered the world of false nails.

In a rather foolhardy attempt to make ourselves presentable at my sister’s wedding my Mother and I thought we’d spruce up our nails by buying some falsies. As I’m not used to having nails (I was a biter!) I opted for some shortish ones. After all, I wouldn’t want to put someone’s eye out.

With a glass of wine in one hand and my very patient Aunt prepping the other we set about beautifying our nails. And beautiful they were. Red, sexy, and tapered. They looked great. I was so chuffed. Truly they were a thing of beauty. Then I had to pee . . .

Now you’d think I would have realised that gluing several centimetres of plastic onto my nails would make life somewhat difficult, after all, this extension has no feeling, no spatial awareness and as I found out, absolutely no respect for the human body.

I quickly learnt to be wary of my new nails and I thought I was adapting well. I went to bed full of hope that I’d be fully used to them in the morning. However after almost gouging my husband and myself several times during the night not to mention getting the flipping things trapped in sheets every 5 minutes I decided that this maybe wasn’t for me and I would take them off.

I went to share this plan with my mother only to find her prising her own nails off with a file. It would seem I wasn’t the only one that had been suffering during the night! Together we finally got the things off and were both left with short bloodied stumps. So much for being presentable for the wedding!

I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m obviously not as committed to the feminine ideal as I thought. I draw the line at self-harm. It wasn’t all bad though. I was so ashamed of my brutalised nails at the wedding that I’ve since stopped biting them. While not quite as pristine as my false ones had been they’re more than presentable and more importantly. I haven’t killed anyone with them yet.

No Strings Attached

It seems you can get almost anything delivered to your house these days. Anything from alcohol to cigarettes, roast dinners and umm tampons!?

Yes Ladies, thanks to 'Trinkets', you can now have a 'discreet' box of tampons dropped through your letterbox every 4 weeks as a beautiful reminder that you are about to go through hell or as the website prefers to puts it:

'Trinkets tampons will make you feel good about your period. Period!'

Make me feel good about my period? Really? I'm sorry but no amount of pretty packaging & soft pastels will make me feel happy that I'm about to shed my innards & have my entire body racked with stabbing pains, not to mention of course just generally feeling gross & devil like. Forget all that though ladies, look, cute packaging! See, now isn't that better?

Actually this isn't even the most nauseating marketing spiel I've encountered for tampons. Moxie wins that award hands down. The Moxie products are strewn with little mantras that make me want to throw up. Look at this little gem from their 'boudoir' range:

'Every day should be special . . . spoil yourself'

I'm sorry? Spoil myself? Unless there's a triple chocolate cake and bottle of Dom Perignon in the box I think I'm going to struggle to 'spoil myself' with a tampon! Oh, and in case some smart arse thinks they have the answer, I would like to add that the instructions strictly forbid use of more than one at a time.

As a smart, independent woman I would like to say that this type of marketing is offensive, demeaning and ineffective. However, as I actually own several of Moxie's 'purse worthy retro style tins' I can only hang my head in shame and tut loudly.